Following up on my November 17 post in this forum on falling bar exam passage rates (“Sure You Want to go to Law School”?), I thought I would pass along some information I got today about falling LSAT medians, which the author identifies as one of the causes.

I have known about falling LSAT medians for quite some time, and have used them as a basis to advise clients to be more ambitious about where they apply, but the two charts in that author’s post shocked even me. I dug out some ’08 numbers and compared them to current ones and although the top schools’ medians are down only a hair, when you get down below T20 or T25, the drop off is significant.

This is good news for those looking at less prestigious schools, of course, and certainly for those who might not otherwise get admitted anywhere, but do watch out for the “siren song” element of this phenomenon, which I addressed in my November 17 post. Especially for this latter group, be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.

passedge wrote:Is there ever a downside to applying to schools you think are out of your score range, other than the time and money invested?

Well...no, actually. Other than the time and money invested, and the hits on your ego from the rejection and from the embarrassment you might suffer, no. It's not like you get only so many shots on goals; you can have as many as you can endure. I always encourage my clients to help themselves to a few reach schools; getting them into one of them is part of my job.

proteinshake wrote:do you think the rise in test takers this cycle and high scorers is significant enough to raise medians?

^^ bumping this post; I'm wondering the exact same thing. Do you anticipate to see a rise in the LSAT medians this cycle and in the coming cycles?

Also this may be unrelated but I was wondering, is there any possibility that schools may revert back to using average scores over the highest score in the near future? I understand most schools nowadays only take your highest score, but was wondering if this would change given the rise in the LSAT takers this past year.

proteinshake wrote:do you think the rise in test takers this cycle and high scorers is significant enough to raise medians?

^^ bumping this post; I'm wondering the exact same thing. Do you anticipate to see a rise in the LSAT medians this cycle and in the coming cycles?

Also this may be unrelated but I was wondering, is there any possibility that schools may revert back to using average scores over the highest score in the near future? I understand most schools nowadays only take your highest score, but was wondering if this would change given the rise in the LSAT takers this past year.

Looking at the posted link, it appears the downward trend transcends number of applicants.

I.E. lets say 5,000 applicants applied in 2010 and 75% of them were 160+ (hypothetical)

Perhaps in 2015 the number of applicants could have risen (I know they declined) to 6,000 people, but the number of 160+ would be like 50%.

The huge problem is there was not only a straight numbers decline, but a proportionate decline as well. The cumulative combined effect of these factors have been significant on law schools, especially T-14 because the highest performing scorers are the ones dropping off. So while there may be more applicants, studies show that those additional applicants are filling up the sub-150 LSAT score range. According to this guy's graph, sub-150 LSAT takers from 7,000 to nearly 9,000 from 2010 to 2015. Each subsection of higher scorers has declined. 160+ saw a small spike in 2014 followed by yet another drop in 2015.